


Pâquerettes (daisies)

by starrystarrytrouble



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Boss/Employee Relationship, Desire, Dreams, F/M, Flowers, Fluff and Angst, Foreshadowing, Late at Night, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Temptation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27687886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrystarrytrouble/pseuds/starrystarrytrouble
Summary: Ethan can't take his mind off his intern. His thoughts right before he decided to bring her along to Miami.Set after Bk1, chap 9.
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	Pâquerettes (daisies)

When he sees her future he sees daisies. 

He takes another sip of scotch on the corner barstool in Donahue’s and looks over at her. 

He’s not sentimental. 

This is purely practical. 

He imagines a warm summer morning, hazy golden sunshine striding bravely through hot clouds lighting up her face. 

He sees flowing dark hair and laughter. Fresh long grass and tall reeds.

A field full of daisies. 

That floral smell, earthy and rich. 

And in his future he sees clinical blue. 

Latex gloves, that fine dusty powder that you shake off with a snap, the smell of rubber and cleaning fluid. 

White coats washed and rewashed. The light smell of detergent. Shiny grey floors. The view of Boston from the 7th floor window. 

He can’t help thinking about it. 

In a way it makes no sense. She’s an intern, with so much potential.

She’s a doctor too. 

But she’s not is she?

She’s sunshine and flowers and warmth and the worst part is, she still has a chance. 

She isn’t bitter and jaded. She isn’t exhausted by the constant churn of interns. 

He imagines it all the time. 

He’s given up trying not to think of her. Its improper in so many ways but there are only so many ways he can tell himself that before he realises that he’s not going to stop.

Their eyes lock too many times a day for this to be nothing. 

He’s noticed interns like her before, the ones who hang around him a little too much, who try to engage him with humour, impressed to find that the great Ethan Ramsey isn’t a dry humourless old man.

He’s a dry sarcastic _younger_ man instead. That’s all.

He’s rolled his eyes and discarded these interns with the same fervour he tosses them all out.

He’s never found an intern where their curiosity in him is matched by his interest in _them_.

Because that is what this is. Make no mistake.

He is _interested_.

He tries to refocus on the image in his mind. 

The coastline of California. Where she’s from. Daisies lined up by the shoreline. The gentle lilt of the western sun. 

Salt in the sea air. 

The wide open Pacific. 

And her, with someone her own age. Her own kind. Someone who makes her happy. Uncomplicated but talented. 

He thinks of the friends he sees her with sometimes, all walking out the hospital exhausted but content while he watches from his office window.

The surgeon. The paramedic. 

Both with the right circumstances. No-one would question her with them. They understand the job, they can support her brilliance in the right way.

It doesn’t matter. 

He’s seen the way she looks at them. Or rather, the way she doesn’t.

Stubbornness irks at him. 

It should be her choice. 

He remembers her hand on his knee in his apartment. The way he wanted her to find out about Naveen. Because he knows, if he’s truly an honest man (and he never is) that there’s only one person who can make her the doctor she can be. 

And it’s the same person who can make her happy. 

No. 

He tears that thought from his mind. He can be her mentor. That’s all.

He thinks about the way she looks at him. 

It isn’t starry eyed admiration. It isn’t even with fierceness. 

It’s interest.

The same thing that makes her so good at her job. Sheer charisma and curiosity. She could be caught in a bank during a heist in a black mask holding a bag of cash and she’d still be able to talk her way out of it. He’s already noticed that. 

She wants to know everything. 

Wants to know _him_.

Naveen’s case was the priority, is the priority. But now it’s something else. 

An excuse. 

A terrible reason to keep her closer than he ever should. 

He’s disgusted with himself.

He looks over to the table of interns, and just like every other time, like some inexplicably dark ritual, she looks up to him at the same moment.

Her eyes are the most utterly captivating shade of green but that isn’t what keeps him looking. It’s the way he’s sure she knows that he sees straight through her. 

It’s imperative that he doesn’t reciprocate.

He looks away. 

Tries to. 

But then he realises he’s still staring right at her.

Each time their eyes meet is catastrophic. 

He’s one step further from helping Naveen, and she’s further from the field of daisies, from the life she deserves, and even worse, she’s closer to him. 

He finally breaks the gaze. 

He knows he should distance himself immediately. He tried, he truly did, he knows it was a low blow but he gave her that utter pain in the ass of a patient earlier.

And then she burst into his office, and almost outed him. 

His anger at his unnatural attraction to her rivalled only by her fierce contempt for his attempts to fight it.

He takes another swig of whiskey and runs his thumb over the smooth glass surface.

Something’s changing. 

He still sees the field of daisies, the raw Californian heat dusting her skin, her face basking in the sparkling fire of the sun. 

It’s still her future. The only one she can have.

But he can feel it now. 

If he closes his eyes, blurs out the roar of the bar, he can almost feel the pulse of that same golden light radiate over him, the smallest white petals and yellow pollen tracing the outline of his jaw. 

This is foolish. 

Destructive. 

He takes another look up and sure enough she’s looks through her lashes at him at the same exact moment. 

He’s damned to this hell. 

He picks up the paperwork that’s been sitting on the bench next to him. 

Registration for the medical conference in Miami.

His own name is printed in capitals. 

On the line for ‘GUESTS’ he takes out a fountain pen and quickly scrawls her name. 

He looks over at her again. She lifts her eyebrows in a question, the smallest hint of a smile tracing the corners of her rosy mouth.

He can smell flowers.

They leave in two days.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written a fic set in book 1 - any comments/thoughts always appreciated.
> 
> Another little experiment just for AO3. Thanks for reading :)
> 
> \- Ruby 
> 
> (@starrystarrytrouble on Tumblr)


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